The price of failure is... better draft choices. https://www.bengals.com/news/on-the-clock-bengals-to-pick-no-1-in-2020-nfl-draft https://www.foxnews.com/sports/bengals-top-pick-2020-nfl-draft We're number one!
Geographical/cultural isolation obviously has an effect - how far northeast are we talking? Sort of like how the mountain west tends to gravitate around Denver, I could definitely see something similar happen with, e.g. Newcastle.
The real point missing is context and comparison. The relegated clubs of the epl are superior to any of the mls clubs. The players lists prove that. So in fact you say you rather look at sub par clubs instead of the superior ones. Being "bad"in one league doesnot equate to being bad in comparison to a club in another league.
Huddersfield Town is currently putting that hypothesis to the test (arguably, so has Blackburn over the years ).
Liverpool fans will NOT go to games if they pulled out of the English league, I'm telling you there would be fury the likes of which have never been known in a sporting environment, how do I know? I AM the horses mouth remember! Why is it the only people that think this Euro superleague will work are people who don't actually live here? The reason is simple - at the end of the day no matter how much you might like some kind of closed off league containing the odd club from each country the Europeans don't want it! And unfortunately unless a day comes when they do it ain't happening, you think English football fans would simply shrug their shoulders and say 'oh well' if they tried then you simply don't know English football fans! I DO know them because I have interacted with them every day of my life! Yes I remember Stamford Bridge in the eighties, I know the people that went then and I know the people that go now, I am the horses mouth remember! I was absolutely amazed when US fans just 'rolled over' when they took Anerican football games to London - I couldn't believe they would let it happen! In my mind there should have been rioting in the streets 'over there', I obviously don't understand the American football fans mindset - but then again why would I? Because I don't live there, I don't experience it! I DO know an English football supporter though & I know them well - European super league? P*ss off!
I wonder what percentage of Geordies don't support the Toon? Pretty miniscule I imagine. I've certainly never met one that doesn't :-D
Also, Stoke, Sunderland, Bolton, Barnsley, Charlton, Birmingham, Coventry, Ipswich, Portsmouth, Bradford, Oldham, Swindon and Wigan.
This might be a good time for you to turn off the computer and take a walk or something. Maybe steam some lavender oil. Nobody here is saying Chelsea or Liverpool should join a Superleague. It's the presidents of the clubs themselves that have come up with this idea.
Wait, I thought the problem was that solidarity payments tipped the balance to relegated teams? At least, that's been a relatively constant theme in this thread.
I was just making a joke about how badly Huddersfield has cratered (and taking a shot at my own Rovers in the process). Largely you don't see a double-relegation, or threat of it, probably because of the payments.
Yes. I would. I'd rather watch a team that you would consider to be "sub-par" play competitive matches (and I'm not making the "friendly" argument here; I'm talking about close, evenly-matched games) than watch teams with superior talent playing hopelessly outmatched clubs. Not that MLS is "sub-par." If you consider "par" to be the elite leagues of the world, sure, but there are a lot of leagues out there. This has nothing to do with promotion and relegation. MLS has a salary cap; England doesn't. If LAFC or Atlanta didn't have to restrict themselves according to spending limits, I'm guessing they could put together rosters that would rival some of the world's elite superclubs. But I'm glad that's not the way we operate. I love that even the best teams have to show up and compete every week rather than walk around for 90 minutes and bank three easy points.
But the comment I reacted on stated precisely that you rather watch teams fighting each other while being on the same level and about the teams in the epl that only play to survive. Relegation bound teams in the epl are superior to all mls teams. Plus the bottom epl teams (down from 10) are not that far from each other in quality, so these, while superior to mls teams, are in fact playing matches on even grounds. So you still, despite those being superior and playing against each other level games, prefer sub par mls matches. Which is fine, but it cannot be because of those mls matches being better than for instance Bournemouth vs Everton. They simply arenot.
Paul is one of those that like to have it both ways. Last season he was arguing that Huddersfield were getting deliberately relegated so they could take the solidarity money and get re-promoted this season. Oops. Double relegations are usually achieved by teams that are ineptly run, like Sunderland.
You should see how the Premiership pimps itself out over here by putting on early morning televised watch-parties and mentioning their "MyPremierLeagueMornings" hashtag every five minutes. Sad thing is Crawley, should the big clubs ever look at their balance sheet and determine that being in a closed Superleague would be more beneficial to their bottom line, than catering to their domestic fans, don't think they won't do all they can to make it happen. I recall a bit of an uproar when 2nd placed teams first got in the Champions League. Now nobody cares. There are ways to do these things slowly so that the outrage is largely mitigated in the long run. 20 years from now, Real Madrid may not even have to quaify via their league. On the subject of being up in arms over something, I'd have thought that would have happened over the Qatar World Cup (which I won't be watching) but evidently football is more important than human rights issues, so billions will tune in regardless.
Chelsea have recently lost AT HOME to West Ham, Southampton & Bournemouth - tomorrow they play Burnley at home - Burnley have picked up 4 points in their last two visits to Stamford Bridge! Are we seriously supposed to believe that as a top 6 club Chelsea can 'stroll' their way through games against lower half opposition!! Lol, they're obviously haven't read the EPL gospel according to you!? :-D
By the time we get to 32 matches played there will be NO games with nothing riding on them - wanna bet otherwise? Time will of course tell.
No, like I said previously - bottom line is the club's will HAVE to have domestic support, let's say one in every 30 fans in the UK support Liverpool - what will happen with the 'other' 29 in every 30 fans? Will any 'care' about this closed off super league? How would that then affect the media coverage in the UK? Will the newspapers cater to the 1 in 30 or the 29 in 30? What would then happen to the match day attendances at Anfield when suddenly nobody gives a sh*t whether they beat Locomotive Moscow and their17 travelling fans or not? Everybody will be far more concerened about the league THEIR club is embroiled in. How long before fans in the red half of Liverpool want to be part of the league going on around them? It simply aint working - like I said unless it's somehow played in conjunction with domestic football (like the Champions league) but then how will they fit it all in? The only reason the Champions league works is because ALL clubs know they can strive to get there, turn the Champions league into a closed shop then 8 out of every 10 fans accross Europe will stop giving a f*ck about it completely!
I'm going to guess that the clubs' front offices have done a bit more legitimate market research on the subject than "the horse's mouth".
Assuming you're talking just about the Round 33 games, the closest we got last year was Palace-Newcastle, Newcastle was 14th, 4 points above relegation with a a much better GD, but not comfortably safe. Palace was 13th, 7 points clear and 11 points out of the European spots, so definitely entering that zone of nothing to play for the rest of the season. In Round 32 of 2017-18 Watford played Bournmouth. They were tied at 36th points, in 10th and 11th, 7 points from Europe and 6 points from safety. That's pretty close to a meaningless game as the realistic (not mathematical) possibility of jumping 3 teams in 7 games while making up 7 points, or being jumped by 7 teams making up 6 points in that time is pretty low. Sure enough, the teams finished 12th and 14th. In round 2 of 2016-17 WBA played Southampton. WBA was on 44 points, 7 points from Europe and 16 points from relegation. Southampton was on 38, 13 points from Europe and 10 from relegation. WBA may have had a faint European hiope still but realisitcly probably not. Sure enough, both teams finished double-digits away from both Europe and relegation. So while Round 33 games could have meaningless fixtures its not a guarantee. Though by round 35 I'd say the odds are pretty good.
I think the Prem had a smaller gap between top and bottom than most European leagues, thanks largely to the £100 million handout at the start of each season.
Again, should the big clubs ever look at their balance sheet and determine that being in a closed Superleague would be more beneficial to their bottom line, than catering to their domestic fans, don't think they won't do all they can to make it happen. Don't think they'd be dumb about it though. 30 years ago, only league champions and European Cup holders qualified for the Champions League. Then it was runners up from top leagues. Before long it was the top 3-4 with one having to qualify. Now it's 4 teams qualifying directly to the group stage over champions of other leagues. If I wanted to get us to a European Superleague situation, then in the next 5 years, I'd declare the top 3 clubs in the coefficients qualify automatically. After 10 years, expand that to 5. Push to 10 after 15. After 20 years, modify the group stage so that there are groups of 8 instead of 4, making it more of a round-robin. Teams will slowly start fielding weaker teams for domestic games (remember, they want to keep that coefficient up) as they prioritize the UCL. Soon we'll have the big clubs once again lamenting that despite spending the money and building the squads that draw the support, they still somehow have to qualify. UEFA moves to a licensing system for the top teams... and so long as they're careful and structure it so technically no club is guaranteed perpetual admission and technically any team has a path to entry, it's all legal. Then, three or four decades from now when the notion of the UCL as a tournament and the league as a club's bread and butter is a fading tradition, when Chelsea fielding their top XI against West Ham is decreasingly common, they can mull over the idea of withdrawing from the EPL full time and it won't seem like such a heinous act. The smaller teams, being somewhat used to the big guns treating the league as an afterthought might even say "good riddance". The big clubs' fans will probably stick with them and may not matter anyway because by that point the lion's share of the revenue will probably be coming from a global audience streaming the games to VR theaters. There's a reason why the NBA and Arsenal recently distanced themselves from critical statements about the Chinese government from people in their employ.
Do you really mean that? One thing Euro soccer clubs have no clue about is about markets. They could learn a thing or two from modest companies about that. Even big clubs like Real or ManUnited are in the business world midgets and then ones that are run in a way you wouldnot see in a normal company.